-28-

[https://i.imgur.com/LoYByv0.png]

As the door closed behind us, Hailey and I were faced with a mystifying scene…

Julius was slouching over in a chair with his hands pressed firmly against his forehead, while Mei was vigorously scrubbing at a dark stain on her shorts located in a compromising place.

I quickly glanced around the room, spotting Rias sitting cross-legged in the left corner and Akari who was positioned the same way in the right corner.

“Uhmmm, what in the Aether is this?”

Mei’s head shot up and I recoiled under her fierce glare.

“Timeout.”

“Time… out?”

“Yes.”

“What does that even mean?”

“…”

I felt the temperature of the room rise from the silent anger radiating from the ranger.

Julius slowly lifted his head up from his hands and looked at me with a brand new, never seen before, classic Julius expression; utter defeat.

“Apparently it’s some sort of ritual, for unruly children. To reflect on their actions.”

I glanced at Hailey, but she was equally stunned and wearing a look of complete confusion.

“Did something happen to warrant this, ‘timeout’?”

Julius slowly rose from his seat, grabbed my shoulders, turned me around to the door, and led me out into the hall. We walked to Rias’ room and he pushed the door open, revealing another strange sight.

Blackened patches of scorched fabric spotted the carpet.

“What the—was it… Akari?”

He pointed at the carpet with one hand, and the other cradled his head as he sighed, “No. Listen… I don’t think fire spells are your sister’s forte.”

“Rias did this!?”

“Yep.”

“Does the inn staff know?”

“Yep.”

“…”

I pulled the door closed. After silently staring at the grain in the wood for a moment, we walked back to my room. Hailey gave me a quizzical look and I mouthed at her that I’d show her later.

“Alright then,” I clapped my hands together, “Thank you for watching the girls you two. We’ll take over from here. Why don’t both of you go take a nice warm dip in the hot springs. The Matriarchs should be here in the evening, but you’ve got some time to unwind before then.”

“Sounds like a great idea. I think I’ll do just that.”

Julius moved to leave but stopped and looked at Mei, who wore a dangerous look on her face. Her hands hovered over the dark spot she’d been scrubbing at. A worrying thought dawned on me and I frantically looked back at the stain, and noticed that it was not, in fact, a stain—but a scorch mark.

I placed a hand on her shoulder, causing the ranger to flinch. “Are you… okay down there? I can heal you if—”

Her eyes went wide and she shouted, “N-No! I’m fine!” then stormed out of the door, practically pushing Julius out of her way.

“Is she alright?”

“Yeah, I think so,” Julius peeked his head out into the hall, “I don’t really know if she got burned. I tried to ask and got shut down even quicker than you just did.”

“We should have a few restoration potions stashed away in our bag, I can dig one out for her.”

“I brought a few with my gear too. She’s already had one, so I think she’ll be okay. May take some time to kick in though.”

“Alright. Well, go take a break, we’ve got it from here.”

Julius flashed a grin, gave me a quick salute, and then left the room.

I walked over to Akari’s corner and leaned against the wall. She looked up at me, tears threatening to burst from her eyes. I slid down onto my rear and reached out for her, pulling her close to my side.

“You had a pretty lively day, huh kiddo.”

“I dinnit… hic! mean ta… hic! cause trubble…” she stammered between heart-wrenching sobs.

I gently placed my hand down on her head in an attempt to comfort her, “You didn’t cause any trouble. Everything is fine now.”

Akari buried her face in my chest and I gently stroked her hair.

I glanced up to catch Rias peeking at us and I waved her over. She scuttled across the room and sat on my other side. Her face was hard to read, lost somewhere deep in thought.

“So, fire magick isn’t really your thing, huh?”

I got a sharp huff of air in response.

“I mean, what were you trying to do that caused such a mess?”

Rias let out a less intense huff and leaned her head against my shoulder, “I had this idea to attempt a sort of aptitude test for Akari. ‘Cause she’s able to copy and, in most cases, improve any spellcasting she watches.”

“Uh huh. So tell me, how does testing a bunch of spells result in a wildfire that scorches Mei’s shorts?”

“I got careless… Instead of sticking with a single school, I just cast magick kinda randomly. I should have done all the fire spells first, because they’re the hardest to control for me. I got too excited and by the time I started to notice the effects of magicka exhaustion, my SCORCH spell backfired when I got a full dose of magicka feedback.”

A few minutes later a knock came at the door. I opened it to a red-faced Mei, dressed in nothing but a large towel, muttering something unintelligible under her breath.

“What’s up, Mei?”

“I need you… to, uh…” her voice trailed off too softly for me to hear the rest.

I leaned over, moving my head so that my ear was closer to her mouth, “One more time, I couldn’t hear you.”

A sigh of defeat escaped her lips, “I need you to cast a healing spell on me. On my inner thigh. The spring water is too hot. It hurts.”

“It’s a touch range spell… is that okay?”

“…Yes.”

I called out to Hailey that I’d be right back and followed Mei to her room to administer the holy magick. After a quick incantation, a squirmy-legged Mei took her leave back to the springs.

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

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A knock at the door from one of the inn staff about three hours later signaled that our visitors from the Astral Knights had arrived. Rias, Akari, and Hailey remained behind in our room, while Julius, Mei, and I went to greet them.

The Triple Monarch had a spacious common area adjacent to the lobby, so we used that space for our meeting.

Lady Aisling was fully armed in her gallant crimson and gold armor, she took her seat with a huff of exhaustion. She immediately started to unbuckle the straps along her wrists and wriggled out of her gauntlets, splaying her fingers out in the air.

Lady Elin took a more reserved approach and wasn’t nearly as kitted out, opting for lighter gear instead of the elegant dress she had been wearing yesterday. Lady Elin was wearing a red tunic that had a bright sheen—probably some sort of silk—with a long black hooded cloak.

Once Lady Elin had taken her seat and the three of us found our own, she began our meeting before I had a chance to get a word in.

“What can the Astral Knights do for you, Your Majesty? We’re eager to offer any assistance where we can, however we’re in a bit of a state at the moment with something in the city.”

“I think the matter I’ve asked you here for, and your current affair may be the same item. I’m hoping to resolve the state of alert in the city, by calling off your search for the alleged demon.”

Both women exchanged looks of suspicion and Lady Aisling leaned in and addressed me with a hushed voice.

“Where did you hear about that?”

“Before we continue, I’d like to make it clear I don’t want anyone jumping to conclusions and that I would appreciate your trust in this matter.”

“Of course, Empress.”

“Great. Short story is, I have her. The girl you suspect is a demon.”

Lady Elin lost her composure and raised up from her seat with a shout, “You what!?”

A hand reached out and pulled her back down. Lady Aisling shook her head and chuckled lightly, “Honestly, sister. Keep your wits. You would chastise me with zero hesitation if I made a lunge like that.”

I caught a glimpse of Lady Elin’s face reddening, but moved on to hopefully minimize any embarrassment on her part.

“Last night I stumbled upon a troop of guards chasing someone through the markets, and followed them out of curiosity. After the girl managed to shake off the guards I tracked her down, and found her wounded under a bridge.”

“Am I right to assume you tended the creature’s wounds and brought it back here?”

“She isn’t a creature, Lady Aisling. I’ve seen demons—by the Aether, I’ve even seen Celestials and their angelic attendants… I don’t know what that girl is, but she isn’t a demon as we know them.”

“Matriarchs,” Mei took the moment of silence to jump in, “I agree with the Empress. I’ve fought my share of demonspawn, and I don’t believe the girl has any ill intent. She certainly has some oddities in her appearance, I’ll admit, but she’s not a threat to the city.”

As Mei said the word threat, Julius shifted in his seat uncomfortably. Both knights looked at him and Lady Aisling raised an eyebrow.

He sighed, “I’m not going to pretend that she couldn’t be a threat, but I agree with these two. The girl seems normal enough to me. She isn’t human or an elf, but she’s also not like any demon I’ve ever seen.”

Lady Aisling had interlaced her fingers together and seemed to be thinking something over.

I turned to Lady Elin, “Would it be possible to hear the report that brought on the armed response? When I found the girl she had been wounded badly and was so frightened her body was nearly in shock, but she didn’t try to attack me or defend herself. I’d like to understand how this situation got so critical.”

“Certainly. This is the series of events as it was reported up to us. Initially, a spike of magickal energy was detected within a residential area and a knight brigade was sent to investigate. Once they’d arrived, a number of reports from the civilians detailed a creature with demonic deformities emerging from the area where the magickal spike was detected. Those knights called in to headquarters, assuming a demon had made it over the wall and was loose in the city we dispatched a unit of spellblades to track it down, along with a number of patrols to canvas the city.”

“And were any of the patrols or other units sent out injured?”

“No injuries were reported.”

“So, since she has shown no hostility, I think we can consider calling off the alert and retiring the search for her, yes?”

Lady Elin paused and looked to Lady Aisling, who seemed to have reached a conclusion for herself.

Lady Aisling tapped her wrist and a small interface was projected in a mist. She swiped through a few windows which had appeared until the one she was looking for came into view. She transcribed a lengthy block of elvish into the interface and swiped her wrist once more, causing the projection to fade and the mist dispersed.

“Done.”

“Oh. Well, thank you. That was quick.”

“Of course, Empress.”

Both ladies looked on expectantly and I fidgeted uncomfortably in my seat. Julius coughed, drawing the attention of the four of us.

His eyes darted between us, “What? I just had a cough.”

“I believe, unless either of you have anything else, that wraps up our discussion.”

The matriarchs shared another look with each other and Lady Aisling leaned back in her seat.

“I know my sister will probably have more for you tomorrow or the next day. She and the other Tribunal members, all of them this time I believe, are meeting for their last sessions and the reintroduction into the Empire will be a popular topic. However, regardless of those talks I’d like to meet with you about the Astral Knight’s place within the Empire as a whole.”

“Uhh, certainly. I had some ideas, and these two,” I pointed at Julius and Mei, “are the right people to have the talk with.”

Julius raised his eyebrow at me, but remained silent. Mei was much less composed and stammered, “What? Us?”

Lady Aisling chuckled, “How about I bring up our concerns and wants first, then you can tell me if your idea matches up.”

“Sounds good.”

“To start with, Elin is going to remain in Umbraedomis with a quarter of our forces to continue managing the city’s defenses as our order has done for millennia. I’ll be taking the remainder along with you to Tolin. Our primary concern would be housing. From what I could gleam, the restoration efforts in Tolin were making great strides but there was nowhere near enough space to garrison the knight brigades.”

“Can you give us an estimate of the number of Aestori that we can expect to follow us back to Tolin?”

Lady Aisling shifted in her seat, wriggling her hands together, “Just the knighthood alone would be seventy-five hundred. I would say you can expect another three hundred arcanists from the Praecantoris. All of our knights have their own mobility packs, so bedding and such isn’t a concern.”

“I believe we can mark this off as resolved already then.”

The woman’s eyes grew large and her confusion showed clearly on her face.

I leaned back into the couch cushions and motioned at Julius, “Correct me if I’m wrong, but the garrison wings in the lower floors of the Citadel were being cleared when we left, right?”

“Yeah. Even though we only had a few hundred to worry about, the other officers and I felt it would be safer to clear the entire barracks to ensure there weren’t any monsters or demons lurking around. A good number of the rooms had been sealed, leaving us with usable bunk space for fifteen-thousand or more.”

I turned back to Lady Aisling. Feeling the smugness on my face, I tried to recompose myself.

“As I said, that should be resolved.”

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The talks with the Astral Knight leaders continued into the night and eventually I lost my spark to keep going while Julius and Mei hammered out specifics about night-watch rotations, city patrols, equipment storage logging, access restrictions… the list just kept going.

I excused myself and dragged my feet upstairs to my room. As I turned the knob the voices inside hushed, and I was met with nervous looks from Rias and Hailey.

Akari smiled brightly from her seat on the edge of the bed, and jumped to her feet.

“How’d it go?” Hailey’s meek voice chiseled at the tension that had been stifling the room.

“They’ve called off the search for Akari. As long as she’s with us there’s nothing to worry about in the city.”

“Oh thank the Goddesses.” Hailey made a quick gesture across her chest and bowed her head.

Rias fell back onto the floor and splayed her limbs out in a big stretching motion, “We got all worked up for nothing! What a relief.”

I crossed the room, patting Akari’s head gently as I passed—eliciting a few giggles from the little girl—and crawled into the bed.

Hailey sat down next to me and stroked my hair. “You were down there for awhile. I imagine you talked about more than just Akari.”

“Yeah. They’re still going actually. I doubt Julius will run out of steam any time soon, but I feel bad for Mei. She looked like she was gonna start nodding off any second.”

“Anything important I should know, or was it all mostly soldier talk?”

“Soooo much soldier talk. Garrison this, and city guard that.” I threw my arms up, exaggerating mouthing motions with both hands. I couldn’t help but let out a nervous laugh. “My main takeaway was that the other Tribunal members are meeting with a focus on talks about the Empire. Which would be all well and good, save that breakaway faction of independents under Dailyn.”

“You think he’ll cause us problems?”

“I think he’ll cause the Aestori problems, which are now our problems.”

I sighed, and Hailey gave me a disapproving look.

“Let’s worry about it later.” I waved her concerns away. “There’s no sense in wasting the effort stressing over that man today, heck, we may not have any issues at all. But right now I’m so exhausted I could collapse just about anywhere.”

I closed my eyes and drifted off with the warm feeling of Hailey resting her hand on my head.